PM Douglas thanks Cuba for training nationals in medicine and other disciplines and providing assistance in other fields

Aug 16, 2013

Basseterre, St. Kitts, August 16th 2013 (CUOPM) – The Government of Cuba has been hailed for its 18 years of unfailing generosity to the people of St. Kitts and Nevis, the Caribbean and Africa, despite the challenges that the people of Cuba themselves experience.

Prime Minister the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas during his weekly radio programme “Ask the Prime Minister” gave a commitment that the young people will continue to get the assistance of his Labour Party Administration to study either at home or overseas.

He noted that there have been a number of extremely bright, and extremely responsible young people in St. Kitts and Nevis, who over the past 18 years went to the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College (CFBC) to “fulfill their dreams and minds hungering to expand and grow and willing to undertake the hard work that is necessary to complete a university or college degree.

“All they needed was a university that would open its doors to them, so that they could fulfill their dreams of becoming architects, doctors, engineers or whatever their long held dreams moved them to be,” said the Prime Minister, who noted that on taking office in 1995 his new Labour Administration arranged with the Government of Cuba to provide scholarships to young Kittitians and Nevisians.

“And time and time again, the Government of Cuba said to these young people ‘If you are willing to work hard, if you are willing to demonstrate the level of self-control and discipline that obtaining a university degree requires, we will make our institutions of higher education open to you.’

St. Kitts and Nevis nationals boarding an aircraft for have for medical attention

And time and time again, our young people have responded. They have gone to Cuba. They have applied themselves, and they have come back fully equipped to take their rightful places as fully qualified, productive members of the St. Kitts and Nevis society,” said Dr. Douglas who dedicated Tuesday’s programme to the students who studied or are studying in Cuba in response to negative remarks from former senior minister and foreign minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris about nationals of St. Kitts and Nevis who studied in Cuba.

He expressed thanks to the Government of Cuba, not only for their generosity in educating the students, but also for the vast number of Kittitians and Nevisians who had for years been suffering as a result of debilitating vision problems and as a result of important medical and vision care obtained in Cuba, now have a new lease on life. Cuba also provided energy saving bulbs to homes in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Dr. Douglas thanked Cuba for lending their experts in providing the sculptures of National Heroes, the Right Excellent Sir Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw and the Right Honorable Sir C. A. Paul Southwell.

“The Government and people of Cuba, they have been a friend not only to St. Kitts-Nevis, but to the Governments and peoples throughout the hemisphere. And from Canada in the north, to Chile in the south, the nations of this hemisphere have sought, year after year, to bring to an end to the half-century old embargo on Cuba.

He said that the people of St. Kitts and Nevis have always welcomed – with warmth and respect – both the diplomatic representatives as well as the members of Cuban society who have lived in the federation over the years.

“I give a commitment to the people of St. Kitts and Nevis, to our young bright brilliant students who are waiting to go off to study; I repeat, because we are a modern, enlightened society, neither that warmth nor that respect will change under this Labour Administration.